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BLOG TOUR, EXCERPT AND REVIEW – The Lie by Karina Halle

The Lie By Karina Halle

Publisher: Metal Blonde Books

Publication Date: February 15, 2016

Synopsis

Their love led to a lie.

Their truth led to the end.

Scottish enigma Brigs McGregor is crawling out from the ashes. After losing his wife and son in a car accident – and, subsequently, his job – he’s finally moving forward with his life, securing a prestigious teaching position at the University of London and starting a new chapter in the city. Slowly, but surely, he’s pushing past the guilt and putting his tragic past behind him.

Until he sees her.

Natasha Trudeau once loved a man so much she thought she’d die without him. But their love was wrong, doomed from the start, and when their world crashed around them, Natasha was nearly buried in the rubble. It took years of moving on to forget him, and now that she’s in London, she’s ready to start over again.

Excerpt

Without even thinking, I end up in Natasha’s neighborhood, on her street. I pull the car over and stare at her building. I can drive off. I can go blow off some steam with Lachlan. I can drive and scream and wish to god that things were different.

But I don’t want to do it alone.

I get out of the car and head to her flat.

I knock on her door, wondering if she’s even in, if she might still be sleeping. It’s still early on a Saturday and we don’t see each other on the weekends without it being work related, such as seeing a classic film at the cinema. I hadn’t planned to talk to her until Monday, her last week of work as my research assistant before going back to London.

My heart pinches at that thought.

She’s leaving me.

What the hell am I doing?

But then the door opens slowly and she’s staring at me with wide eyes, her hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun, a fluffy robe around her body.

“Sorry,” I say quickly, immediately feeling bad. “Did I wake you up?”

She yawns. “Kind of, but I should be getting up anyway. What’s, um, up?”

I rub my lips together. “I…I wanted to know if you wanted to go for a drive?”

“Where?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Far away. But not too far. I have to be back by twelve-thirty for Hamish.”

“What time is it now?”

“Eight-thirty.”

She rolls her eyes. “And you were wondering if you woke me up. I should still be sleeping for at least another two hours.”

I nod, embarrassed at my enthusiasm. I’m being inappropriate. “I should go.”

I turn around, but she reaches out and grabs my arm, holding tight. “No, don’t,” she says. “I want to go with you. Just give me five minutes, okay?”

I turn to look at her and she’s flashing me a persuasive smile.

“I’ll be in the car,” I tell her.

Somehow she’s true to her word. In five minutes she’s jogging down the steps of her building, dressed in jeans and a tank top that shows off the tawny warmth of her summer tan. She hasn’t touched her hair at all; it’s still up in that bedhead bun, and there isn’t a bit of makeup on her. She doesn’t need it. She looks joyful. She looks absolutely beautiful.

“You’re fast,” I tell her as she slips into the passenger seat.

She giddily drums her hands across the dash and beams at me. “I’m fast when I want to be. I love this car. Where are we going again? Oh right, somewhere far away. Can we get coffee first? I’m dying.”

I can’t help but grin at her as I turn the key. The car starts on the first turn. She’s my good luck charm. “You don’t seem like you need coffee.”

She opens it and it falls open with a clunk. She takes out an old faded road map and starts looking it over.

“Anything strike your eye?”

“I’m looking for Loch Ness.”

“That’s too far.”

“Okay, is there like another lake with a swamp monster?”

“Nearly all the lochs are in the Highlands.”

“Arrrrrrrrrr in the Highlands,” she says playfully, imitating my accent.

“Okay, maybe no coffee for you.”

“Don’t be cruel, Professor Blue Eyes.” She goes back to studying the map but the mention of my nickname makes a small fire build inside me. And not one of anger.

She points on the map. “Here. Balmoral.”

“That’s where the Queen lives.”

“I know. I want to say hello.”

“It’s a two-hour drive,” I point out.

“Well, then we better get cracking,” she says. “The Queen is expecting us.”

She’s definitely full of spirit today. It seems to latch onto me and I ingest it like a tonic. She’s erasing all the humiliation and pain from the morning.

We head out of the city, taking the A-90 to the M-90 and speed north. After we get her some coffee and we share a couple of sausage rolls for breakfast, I warn her that we literally will see the estate and have to head back. But she doesn’t mind.

And honestly, neither do I. I crank the old radio on the car to pick up an oldies station playing a special on Otis Redding. The day is warm and gorgeous, and even though we’re going fast, our windows are down, enjoying the wind and the sun on our skin.

About an hour into our drive, Natasha turns to me and says, “Tell me the truth. Why did you come to get me this morning?”

“Was it that unusual?” I ask without looking at her.

“Yes,” she says. “The last time you came to my house without me knowing…”

“Back then I was following up on an email. I wanted to know if you were all right,” I tell her before she can tell me anything else about that night.

“And now I want to know if you’re all right,” she says gently.

I glance at her. There’s a softness in her eyes that undoes me. I grip the wheel hard, conscious of my every movement and how they might appear to her. A good man, after the night she kissed me, the night I kissed her right back, would have never been alone with her again.

But I’m not a good man.

I’m a man who is slowly but surely falling in the wrong direction.

Whitney’s 4.5 Star Review

Since meeting Bram in The Play, I have been dying to get my greedy hands on Professor McGregor! With his tragic but mysterious past, there was no doubt Karina Halle was going to weave a story of heartbreak that hopefully would leave us smiling at the end.

I feel like I should address the elephant in the room (err, book) as much as I can without providing spoilers. The aspect of cheating in books is a hot topic and one that I know often receives criticism. I, myself, am sometimes reluctant to read books with known cheating. I also know this book has received some early haters based solely because of the way our two main characters meet.

So I will leave it at this: Karina doesn’t hide how Bram and Natasha originally fall in love nor does she (or the characters) excuse their behavior. It’s handled in a classy way and probably not as bad as you might be cooking up in your imagination. Both of these characters have really good self control. Which honestly, you put me in a room with Professor Blue Eyes and I’d be toast. Whew… he’s hot. But back to the whole cheating thing. It happens, it’s not as bad as you think but what does happen is essential to the story and to the development of both of these characters. Their guilt, their shame, their self loathing is all a direct result of their past.

The Lie really gets into the nitty gritty of human emotion. There are no perfect characters, no princes or princesses to woo the reader. What we get are two very damaged and yes, flawed, individuals who are lucky enough to meet their soul mate. Natasha and Bram both change quite a bit as they let go of their past and learn to find happiness again. And of course, it’s not an easy road. I think this can definitely be described as a forbidden romance.

Karina is one of my go to authors. She does an excellent job of overall story development. Her characters, the mood, the setting all fit together and it works for me time and time again. So if you’re a fan of the other books in this series, please give this a chance. It’s not all light and fluffy, unicorns and rainbows but it’s very real. Even after a few uncomfortable moments, I am so glad I read this and would recommend it to anyone.

See the other books in this series of stand alones!

About Karina Halle

Karina Halle is a former travel writer and music journalist and The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestselling author of The Pact, Love, in English, The Artists Trilogy, Dirty Angels and over 20 other wild and romantic reads. She lives on an island off the coast of British Columbia with her husband and her rescue pup, where she drinks a lot of wine, hikes a lot of trails and devours a lot of books.

Halle is represented by the Waxman Leavell Agency and is both self-published and published by Simon & Schuster and Hachette in North America and in the UK.

Hit her up on Instagram at @authorHalle, on Twitter at @MetalBlonde and on Facebook. You can also visit www.authorkarinahalle.com and sign up for the newsletter for news, excerpts, previews, private book signing sales and more.

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